


Perennials

by Fourier



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Adventuring, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, Vax & Keyleth live their domestic life with the Air Ashari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 21:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8817664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fourier/pseuds/Fourier
Summary: Keyleth takes him to the Healer the second time she finds him perched on the edge of Zephra, blind-drunk and staring down into the swirling clouds below.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to sparxflame for part of this concept. 
> 
> Perennials are flowers that lay dormant in the winter and re-bloom in the spring, instead of dying and re-seeding.

Keyleth takes him to the Healer the second time she finds him perched on the edge of Zephra, blind-drunk and staring down into the swirling clouds below.

(“I’ve got _wings_ , Kiki,” he’d reminded her, when she’d dragged him away from the sheer face of the cliff and back to their home, hands tight and trembling around his wrists.

“It’s not about the outcome, Vax,” she’d told him, and he couldn’t understand why she was crying.)

He’d talked her out of it the first time, told her he’d handle it himself, that these things just happen sometimes, and he’ll make sure that it doesn’t again. So when it does, and he wakes up the next morning to find that she hasn’t slept, he puts a hand to her face to wipe at the tears still on her cheeks and tells her _We can go now, if you want._

They walk with arms linked through the city streets; they usually do, and usually Keyleth chatters the whole way about things she used to do in that patch of grass over there, shops she used to run into and beg candy from the shop owner over here, but this time it is quiet. Vax leans against her as they walk, cloak heavy and weighing on his shoulders, and she stands tall and proud and smiles at those who pass. 

“Does he have a name?” Vax asks her finally, as they get within a few houses of their destination.

“Probably,” Keyleth says. “We just call him the Healer, though.”

(She hasn’t said much about him; Vax knows he is not a cleric, that he is an Ashari like the rest of them, but that there is some service he provides that Keyleth thinks he needs. He has heard her talking to Vex about it once, in hushed tones when she came to visit, and they’d stopped talking about it once he walked into the room.)

She drops him off at the door to the hut, and he feels foolish, like a child left at school for the first time. But she takes his face in her hands and says, “I love you, you know?” with a kiss that says the same. 

“Love you too, Kiki,” he murmurs, and she watches him duck inside with her hands clasped tight at her waist. 

He does not know what to expect, but he is still caught off balance by the reality of the Healer’s hut. He is familiar with Pike’s radiance, with the laying of hands on skin and the feeling of warmth coursing through veins, and he expects a similar treatment here. But there is no place to lie down, no holy symbols adorning the walls. The entryway opens to one room, brightly lit, a warm orange glow like lamplight, with little in the room but two chairs, a scattering of plants and flowers, and an elderly Ashari man with a gentle face and an outstretched hand. 

He sits, and they talk. Questions he has never thought of; questions he has tried very hard not to think of; questions whose answers fall easily from his lips when he least expects them to. They are often about himself—his sleep, his dreams, his aspirations—but sometimes about Vex’ahlia, about Keyleth. They are not yet about Zephra. About the cliff’s edge.

“Thank you, Vax’ildan,” the Healer tells him, and sounds like he means it. He bows, then, in his chair. “I look forward to getting to know you.”

He is given a time and a place next week to meet again, a bundle of herbs and instructions as to how to take them, and a single flowering plant. 

“What do I do with this?” he asks, holding the plant in one hand. 

The Healer smiles. “I will see you next week,” he says, and gestures Vax out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me about soft recovering Vax & his beautiful princess wife Keyleth @ brotherkashaw on tumblr.


End file.
